Troy Senik: Cuddled into 'soft despotism' by coo

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg looks at a 64oz cup, as Lucky's Cafe owner Greg Anagnostopoulos, left, stands behind him, during a news conference at the cafe in New York, Tuesday, March 12, 2013. New Yorkers were still free to gulp from huge sugary drinks Tuesday, after a judge struck down the city's pioneering ban on supersized sodas just hours before it was supposed to take effect, handing a defeat to health-conscious Bloomberg. SETH WENIG, ASSOCIATED PRESS

Everything you need to know about American society can be found in "Democracy in America," the mid-19th century collection of observations on the nation's character by the French writer Alexis de Tocqueville. In a week where a New York City judge overturned Mayor Michael Bloomberg's prohibition on oversized sodas (thus depriving us of the spectacle of Dr. Pepper speakeasies in the Big Apple), it's worth revisiting Tocqueville's concept of "soft despotism," his term for a state of affairs in which government depletes social vitality by managing every last aspect of its citizens' lives.

Tocqueville described soft despotism as "cover[ing] the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."

Bloomberg, it should be noted, is the nanny state shepherd par excellence. He may have suffered a setback in the war against soda (this week's ruling will be appealed to a higher court), but he's already successfully regulated everything from smoking, to trans fats, to the salt content of New Yorkers' food. If there's a line that the mayor is unwilling to cross when it comes to interfering in the lives of his constituents, it has yet to be found.

The real story here isn't just one mayor who's something of a fast food Captain Ahab. It's the growing willingness of the elite class to impose its values on the rest of society. Ironically, the very people who fret the loudest about "diversity" are the ones least willing to cede social space to those who don't share the beliefs.

So widespread is this trend that it even bled into the selection of a new pope. As speculation began growing about the next pontiff in recent weeks, so too did casting advice from outlets that weren't exactly known for their friendliness to Catholic orthodoxy. In the Daily Beast, for example, Democratic political operative Bob Shrum teed off on the church for "intolerance" on everything from homosexuality to contraception to not allowing its priests to marry – in other words, for conducting itself as if it actually believed in the tenets of its faith.

As the opinion of one man, it's relatively harmless. When given the force of the state, however, it becomes outright dangerous. What is the Obama administration's requirement that business owners provide contraceptive coverage for their employees if not an implicit suggestion that there's no place in polite society for anyone who objects to the practice as a matter of conscience? What about the Christian wedding photographer in New Mexico who was found to have violated anti-discrimination laws simply for turning down a request to shoot a lesbian couple's commitment ceremony?

The point isn't that the beliefs of one segment of society ought to be allowed to triumph over those of another. One can have no problem with either contraception or gay marriage (the position of this author) and still be troubled by a legal regime that denies the right of conscience to those who do. The First Amendment's protections of religious freedom are little more than dead parchment if they cease to be operative any time that religious beliefs butt up against the will of the state.

It is impossible to maintain a free society when freedom is defined as the ability to live by your own tastes and beliefs as long as they comport with the preference of the ruling class. On matters as picayune as the size of a soft drink or as consequential as exercising religious conscience, however, that is precisely the current trend. Let us call it what it is: soft despotism.

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